Forestry
SIC 0800
NAICS 113
Forestry organizations operate timber tracts, tree farms, forest nurseries, and related activities such as reforestation services and the gathering of gums, barks, balsam needles, maple sap, Spanish moss, and other forest products. For discussion of logging and wood production, see also the article entitled Logging.
Forestry is the science of developing and managing woodlands and the water resources that sustain them. The purpose of forestry is to develop fuelwood (for fuel), sawlogs (for lumber), and pulpwood (for paper production) that can be extracted through logging. The production of fuelwood, sawlogs, and pulpwood grew steadily between 1960 and 2000, rising from 62 billion cubic feet in 1960 to 84 billion cubic feet in 1980, and 110 billion cubic feet in 1995. Global population growth increased demand for wood by 77 million cubic meters per year in the early 2000s. By 2005, production was expected to reach 122 billion cubic feet. About half the wood harvested each year is used for fuel.
Since forestry directly affects the environmental quality of every nation and involves the use of enormous amounts of public and private land, it is a focus of intense public debate in many countries. In most nations, the forest industry—which cuts timber—is also responsible for regenerating and maintaining the land. While intense worldwide debate continued over the extent and location of timber harvests, the forest industries of most major industrial nations have, for the most part, become more responsible and careful in their management of forest resources.
In some developing nations, overcutting of land to create farmland, ranchland, or fuel continued to degrade the environment. While Southeast Asian nations producing tropical timber moved to check overcutting through regulation, taxation, and export bans, overcutting was said to continue despite safeguards. The loss of tropical rain forests in South America is a major example of this problem. Another problem was the massive damage done in Indonesia from 1997 through 2002, when fires—some deliberately set—ravaged lands where timber had been cut or where forests were being cleared for agriculture. The burnings were supposed to help prepare or clear the land for agricultural purposes, but once the fires were out of control, they created intense smog and haze that affected the entire region for months. Monetary damages from the fires and the haze they caused were estimated at US$4.4 billion in a study from the Economy and Environment Program for South East Asia (EEPSEA) and the World Wildlife Fund (WWF).
Likewise, forest fires burned out of control in Mexico in May and June 1998. While these forest fires were attributed to extremely dry weather caused by the El Nino phenomenon, Mexican authorities were criticized for being unprepared for the disaster. The fires wiped out vast sections of Mexico's forestland, and the damage included the holdings of forest products companies. Fires have also been problematic in Chile. In 1999, fires flamed out of control to destroy 242,000 acres of forest. In 2002, some 93 fires in Chile threatened both forest preserves and cash-crop forests. In 2003, the Russian Federation lost 23.7 million hectares of forested land to fires; Australia, France, and Portugal also weathered significant fire losses that year. The biggest fire threat, however, is in sub-Saharan Africa, where the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) estimated that approximately 170 million hectares of forests are burned each year (about 10 percent of this, the FAO said, was necessary for woodland renewal). The costs associated with forest fires, which consume about 350 million hectares—the size of India—worldwide each year, are estimated by the FAO at several billion dollars annually.
While forests exist in every nation on earth, the scientific management of forests tended to be concentrated in countries that produce large volumes of forest products although these countries did not necessarily have the most total forest area. For example, Finland and Sweden were leaders in forestry management and produced very high volumes of forest products yet did not rank among the top ten countries in terms of total forest area. Leading areas in terms of total forest cover were the Commonwealth of Independent States (former Soviet Union), North America, Scandinavia, continental Europe, Southeast Asia, New Zealand, and Latin America. In Latin America several companies established highly productive plantation forests (artificially planted forests intended for harvest at a specific time), particularly in Brazil and Chile.
Forest policies around the world differed based on each country's political history. In the United States, the federal and state governments own and manage substantial shares of forestland— especially in the West—but private corporations and individuals also own large woodland tracts, particularly in the South. In former communist countries, where forests were owned by the state, emerging market economies privatized forestry to varying degrees. Mixed ownership of woodlands, like that of the United States, is found throughout most of Asia, Western Europe, and South America. In Japan, most forests—a precious commodity in such a densely populated country—are state owned. In many African countries, tribal ownership is prevalent, a practice that can make modern forestry management difficult.
Although there are thousands of tree, plant, and shrub varieties growing in the world's forests, foresters cultivate a relatively small number of tree species. Most forestry activities focus on two broad varieties of trees: coniferous and nonconiferous (broadleaf). Coniferous trees, known as softwoods, include pines, spruces, firs and hemlocks while nonconiferous trees are hardwoods that include oaks, maples, and beeches. Forested areas around the world also contain a large variety of woody shrubs and grasses (such as bamboo). In 2005 about 41 percent of the annual world harvest of wood was comprised of softwood species. Plantation forests accounted for only 4.7 percent of forestry acreage worldwide.
Forests regenerate naturally through seeding or sprouts that grow from the roots of cut trees or artificially by planting seedlings. Hardwood trees are usually allowed to regenerate naturally. Most softwoods do not sprout from the roots of cut trees and are most often replanted after harvest. In the early 2000s, according to USDA statistics, about 2.6 million acres of trees were planted annually in the United States;roughly 1.8 billion trees. The forest industry planed 45 percent of this total, and the national forest system planted 6 percent. Other government and industries accounted for another 7 percent, with the remainder planted by noncommercial owners. Replanting by forest products companies and other groups created a net growth in the amount of forested land in most major countries. In Western Europe, for example, there was 30 percent more forested land in the mid-1990s than there was 50 years prior. From the early 1970s to the mid-1990s, the total acreage of trees growing in the United States increased by 20 percent.
The global forestry industry has often struggled under the pressure of two conflicting demands: (1) the world's growing population demands more lumber, paper, and other wood products; and (2) the environmental goal of permanently preserving a larger share of the world's
forests from commercial development.
Environmental groups, for example, argue that further use of wood resources will damage the environment. The timber industry contends that if timber production were reduced significantly worldwide, the use of more damaging wood substitute materials would likely increase. According to some sources, these substitute materials have substantially higher negative environmental impacts than tree harvesting and planting, an infinitely renewable process. For example, metals, cements, and other substitute materials would require environmentally damaging mining or quarrying activities. Also, the processing of most substitute products would require far more energy than is needed to create wood products.
Major commercial forestry operations are concentrated in the forest product producing countries—mainly the United States, the Commonwealth of Independent States, and tree-rich countries with small populations such as Sweden, Finland, and Canada. However, nontraditional forestry operations are growing fast in countries such as Brazil, Chile, and New Zealand. Also, Southeast Asian nations, such as Malaysia and Indonesia, having rapidly depleted their stands of virgin timber, are now establishing large plantations to supply the many pulp and paper operations being built there.
Forestry operations are driven by the global demand for lumber and wood fiber, which is increasing at a rate parallel to or slightly greater than the increase in world population. In societies in which most of the population exists at a subsistence level, forestry management is based on the demands for firewood and cleared, arable land. In fact, more trees are used for firewood around the world than any other single use. In more industrialized countries, forestry focuses on growing trees to make building materials, paper, and other manufactured products.
Considerable tension remains between the world's desire for forest products and the demand for the permanent preservation of natural forests. Between 1960 and 1985, the...
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